It’s rather frustrating having oily and dehydrated skin, and acne at the same time as you don’t know how to treat the condition. While there may not be an immediate solution available, if you know what’s happening and why, you can easily fine-tune your skincare routine.

It’s better starting by understanding what dehydrated skin is. This is generally a temporary condition induced by the overuse of skincare products not meant for your skin type or by some irritating ingredients. It is unlike dry skin which is the impairment of the skin’s outer layers due to skin disorders like eczema, genetics and years of unprotected sun exposure.

Cause for dehydrated skin

Now, the cause for dehydrated and acne-prone skin, which is unfortunately usually your own skincare routine. For example you may be using drying soaps, harsh scrubs or products with too much of natural or synthetic fragrances.

Even the overuse of cleansing brushes, toners containing lots of alcohol and other irritating ingredients and not using sunscreen every day can mess your skin. So while it’s possible to get your skin back just by eliminating these bad practices, you need to be specific with your anti-acne regimen.

Use the right anti-acne products

It is true that salicylic acid and benzoyl peroxide are essential and effective anti-acne ingredients. However the problem is that if you already have dry skin, you can’t just apply produces containing these ingredients.

You need to carefully monitor how your skin responds to them and if necessary, make adjustments to find out which product your skin responds better with. While salicylic acid may be great for some people, others will find their skin responding better to benzoyl peroxide.

The problem is that there are many products in the market which not only contain salicylic acid or benzoyl peroxide, but also contain other skin-damaging ingredients which may trigger oil production and dry and flaky skin at the same time. As the average customer may not know which ingredients to avoid, just steer clear of formulas containing high amounts of alcohol, peppermint, citrus oils, eucalyptus, witch hazel and menthol.

These are the basics to treating skin which is both dehydrated and has acne. There is more to the subject, which will be discussed in the next post like how necessary it is for you to balance your skincare routine and which moisturizers you should use on your skin.